


Second Chance

by buffering



Category: Original Work
Genre: Complete, Depression, Existential, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 16:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffering/pseuds/buffering
Summary: “You’re early,” Death finally says, seeming impassive but voice barely allowing a spark of sky blue sadness into it.





	Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago for a class, and I figured someone would want to read it. Maybe. We'll see.   
> If you will be triggered by any of the tags, please move on to another story. I'd rather you be safe than you to read this and then have a shitty time afterwards.   
> Any errors are mine as well, and [please ignore any formatting issues - I'm still getting used to A03.   
> ~enjoy!~

It’s funny that people say that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel when you die, because that’s just not true. There’s no transition from being alive to dead, no way to see your body as your soul goes to wherever it goes. There’s no floating, no angels to carry your soul away, no crossing a bridge made of light. One second you’re alive, breathing and bleeding, and the next you’re dead. When you die, there’s nothing. 

There’s an empty space of colourlessness, something that I can’t describe besides saying it’s the embodiment of blankness. There’s no sound, no feeling of wind or air on my skin. My nerves feel dead to everything, skin and body reacting to nothing. I can’t even hear each step I take in the nothingness. Am I even moving to begin with? Is this really what dying is like? All those people who talk about Heaven and pray for the dead’s souls will be very disappointed. 

I look down at myself, barely able to see my body, almost like it’s there but...not. It’s translucent, but if I focus enough I can make out the clothes I died in. Even if the colours are faded and barely visible, they burn at my eyes against the empty surrounding me. I turn around to face more blankness, trying to make sense of things, when I see it.   
It’s form is hidden by a pure white cloak, large white hood completely hiding the face, but in an instant I can tell what it is. A snake of chills slithers up my spine, tightly wrapping itself around the bones running down my back. The absolute white of it is a stark contrast from the emptiness encircling us, and it would be a welcome difference if not for the dread pooling into my stomach. It’s surprisingly short, almost the same height as an eight year old. If this was any other situation, I’d be joking and hiding my fear behind laughter, but I’m frozen in place like a sculpture. 

It says nothing for what seems to be days years millenia eternity, and I don’t try to speak. Breaking the voicelessness between us feels wrong, like a blade cutting through glass.

“You’re early,” Death finally says, seeming impassive but voice barely allowing a spark of sky blue sadness into it. 

“I’m sorry?” I ask, surprised at how scared, how confused, how mixed up my voice sounds. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? Why should I be afraid of something I wanted, something I wished for for years of my life? I did this to myself, so why should I regret it? It should feel like Christmas and a sweet sixteen all rolled into one (but, of course, I’ll never grow old enough to have a sweet sixteen.) It should be the best day of my life (I would laugh at the irony), something that would make me scream with happiness and relief. But instead there’s an empty hole, a hollow crevice carved into my heart that bleeds with stormcloud grey fear, leaking out in little puffs.

I almost want to laugh, to burst with hysterics, because what sort of dream is this? God or Death or whatever is in front of me, something people only think about or wish for. But I force myself to swallow it down like a too-big pill, because I’ve died, so what else would I be doing with myself? 

“You’re not supposed to be here so soon,” Death says, voice reminding me of bones jangling together. Suddenly it’s in front of me, and beyond-pale white hands seemingly made of smoke carefully turn my arms over like they’re made of porcelain. I flinch at seeing the deep cherry lines running across them, and before I become sick with shame I look away. “You’re early,” Death repeats. 

“I couldn’t handle it anymore,” I breathe out. “Don’t you deal with suicides a lot?”

“Of course,” It says, still holding onto my wrists. “Those ones always work out in the end. You were supposed to be different.”

I laugh, sounding emptier than what we’re currently immersed by. “Well, obviously not. Sorry to disappoint.” Someone else, I add on to myself. “Don’t think like that,” Death snaps, voice loud and echoing. I see a flash of deep sapphire eyes, hundreds of thousands of them all blazing into my very being, and I step backwards. 

“I’m sorry,” It says softly, hood once again hiding all of its face. “Cases like yours are just…”

“What, pathetic?”

“Sad.”

I blink, surprised. Maybe this is some weird dream, and I didn’t actually commit suicide, and soon I’ll be waking up (but of course I killed myself, because running across the horizontal lines is a vertical one, and each wrist is covered in angry lines like how a kid draws with a crayon.) Maybe this is God, and maybe my mom was right about him after all. Death has no empathy, no sympathy for the weak. It takes what it wants, snatches innocents from family’s arms and gives nothing but emptying sadness in return. 

“Why do you even care? Shouldn’t you be used to this by now?” I shake my arms out of Death’s hands, hiding the marks from it and myself. “You’ve existed for what, a billion years or something?”

“I’m not as merciless as I’m seen on Earth. I take, but only because I must take,” It seems to sigh, although I can’t tell. “You wouldn’t understand, because you’re not meant to be here yet.” Death grasps my shoulders, smoke-like hands thrumming with some sort of energy. “Why can’t you make an exception for me, then?” I sound like I’m begging, desperately pleading. (Deep down, I know I am) Death shakes it’s hooded head. “There are powers higher than I, child. They’ve decided it is not yet your time.”

I don’t understand, and maybe I don’t want to understand. If this is God, if this is real, why can’t God see this is the best way to help me? God should be able to know, with all his power and knowledge that the best way to help me is to let me die. God should know and care about me enough to let me die, to let me go and be free at last. If he’s supposed to love everyone, why can’t he let me die already? I got rid of myself to free myself, to bust myself out from the cage and allow myself to finally spread my wings. 

“Are you God?” I try to sound confident while changing the subject, but I end up sounding so small and weak. Death lets out a bone-dry chuckle. “No, but God is one of the forces in charge.”

“Wait, one?” I find myself blurting out. Death waves a hand, as if it’s not a big deal. “You’ll find out later when you’re meant to be here.” It’s tone reminds me of shears cutting through thread, indicating the end of questioning. 

No one could help me in the way that cutting could. My mom forced her religion down my throat and expected me to love it, completely taken aback when I vomited it right back in her face. My friends couldn’t hope to help, because my situation is so small compared to theirs. My therapist turned my problems into her own, focusing on her failing marriage and addicted son instead of my failures and addictions. 

The pressure built and built and built, until finally I grabbed a blade and sliced away like a butcher gone mad. It become a rhythm, like a violinist sawing away at their instrument violently. When I was done, the only thing I was strong enough to do was sigh with euphoric relief. My arms were heavy, like weights were chained to my wrists, but for one of the first times in my life I felt light, like a leaf in the wind or a feather gracefully falling to the earth from the heavens. 

So I cut and bled and made the pain from inside come outside, because it helped. Those delicious red lines spoke the words I didn’t dare say and wove the story I’d rather not spit out. 

So, killing myself was the only way I knew how to help myself, the only way to escape away from everything. Death should know this. I just don’t know why it can’t see it when I, an infinitesimal human, can. 

Death says nothing, even though I can tell it knows what just ran through my mind, like it peered into my very being with all those sapphire eyes again. And then suddenly I feel dizzy, as if I’m falling backwards while standing perfectly still. Out of nowhere I can hear my heart beating, and each thrum of it sends panic clawing through me. Oh god, no.   
“No, please! Don’t do this!” I exclaim, desperation melding in my shaking voice. I think tears spill from my eyes like melted silver. “You don’t know what it’s like for me! Why are you doing this? Why me?” The cloaked being stops, and I can almost feel all those sapphire eyes blazing into me from underneath the hood. “Oh, child,” the rattling voice whispers. A wispy hand cups my face gently, ghostly fingers leaving the faintest trail of white smoke behind as they leave my cheek. “Because you are so special.” 

“Isn’t all life special?” I ask, voice laden with sarcasm and spite, desperately fighting back against my heart slowly beating, against the neurons slowly starting to fire in my brain. Death seems to sigh, not with exasperation but with gentleness or forbearance. “Of course. But you are different.” 

“Why?”

It seems to give another small, sad smile. “Because you’ve been given a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Of course. Life is a gift, a beautiful gift only given to some.” 

I can’t help the snort that escapes me, because how cliche is that? It’s something you’d see on a card or hear at church. “Not everyone gets the chance to live. Not everyone gets the gift of life, something that you’ve taken for granted.” I flinch, hating the disappointment in the entity’s voice.

“Why not pick somebody else to have this gift? Why did it have to be me?” Even as the words leave my mouth I know what it’s going to say, almost like I’ve asked that question thousands of times and heard the answer each time. Or maybe it feels like thousands of other people have asked this, and Death has had to give the answer so many, many times.

“What do you miss?”

I blink in surprise. “What?”

“What do you miss from being alive?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to me before I killed myself, not really. I was too focused on ending my own pain, too focused on the pressure building and bubbling in my chest to think about the things I left behind. Things I can’t ever get back or return to. The thought makes my heart hurt.

I miss the streets of the city lined with either graffitied brick or rusty chain link. I miss the bitter taste of dark chocolate, something Camryn always teased me about. Oh god. I miss her so much, and I can’t imagine what I’ve done to her, what I’m doing to her. I’m so selfish, so stuck in myself I don’t see what I do to others. 

“Oh, I dunno. I’ve never thought of it.”

Death says nothing in reply, although I can tell it disapproves. No, maybe not complete disapproval, but with sad disappointment. I can’t spit the words out, though. I want to, would love to speak them out loud so they become true and real, but I can’t. If it becomes real, I’ll...I’ll have to go back indefinitely. I’ll need to go back, and I just…

“I can’t.” I barely notice the words as they push themselves out, plummeting to the empty ground beneath us. Death inclines it’s hooded head, wanting me to continue. I take a shuddering breath, one that I shouldn’t need to take because I’m dead. Maybe it’s just a reflex or something. At the start and end of the breath, molten silver tears flood from my eyes. The words spill out, dripping and pouring over like an overflowing cup. I talk about how much I miss my friends, how selfish I’ve been in leaving them behind so soon. I talk about how my mom drives me crazy with her hopeful prayers, and how I want to understand but I’m just unable to. I talk and talk and talk until there’s nothing more to say.

There’s more blaring, exhausting silence between us, and I realize how tired I really am, as if my very bones are weighing me down. 

“Do you understand now?” It’s bone-jangling whisper causes me to shiver a little. “I think…” I stop myself, swallow, look off to the side. “I think so.” Even though I can’t see it’s face, I swear I can almost see the small smile that graces Death’s features. As it holds my hands, I can’t help the stab of fear that forces my heart and lungs into overdrive, causes my body to shake and quiver like I’m trapped in a giant freezer. 

“I’m afraid,” I whisper, blinking back the tears that have appeared again. Death seems to smile again, almost like a mother. “You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t, child.” Blood rushes through my veins as air, real crisp city air from my bedroom, fills my lungs. For a second, I feel and see those millions of sapphire eyes again, except instead of being piercing and blazing like barbed flaming arrows they glow with warmth, similar to the sun on a beautiful spring morning. “Don’t throw away this gift again, my child.” I huff out a laugh, smiling past the crystal tears spilling over my eyes. “I’ll try.”

The next thing I know, I’m sitting on my bed, blade in one hand and note in the other.


End file.
